A few pictures from Kathmandu

Click on the album to see a few pictures from Kathmandu. I can't load them all as the connections here are pretty slow. Enjoy.

Kathmandu, Nepal

45 minutes of fame

I am in Kathmandu, Nepal and realized that both my alarm clock and my watch were both 45 minutes too fast. I thought I was going crazy...that spending 28 hours on airplanes and crossing though 14 time zones had suddenly turned me into Marty McFly. But it turns out that Nepal is actually 11 hours and 45 MINUTES ahead of Washington, DC. Why the hell should a country of 26 million get their own time zone? And what do they really think they achieve (I can assure you it is not efficiency) by being 45 minutes faster (or 15 minutes slower) than the rest of the world?

It turns out that not only is Everest nearly impossible to summit, its also almost impossible to get to. I leave tomorrow for Lukla, a small airstrip high in the Himalayas. The area was described to me as being so inaccessible that the Nepalese had to build the landing strip on a hill; there is not a long enough flat space on which to land a plane. So the planes land going uphill and take off going downhill... From Lukla its an 8-day trek to Everest base camp (17,000 feet). The guide I hired requires proof of insurance should I get AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) and they have to helicopter me out. Oh, and monsoon season starts on June 15. What the @#$!@ did I get myself into?

There is not much to eat in Nepal. In fact, I would give a lot for a cup of Ramen noodles right now.

(I leave for the Everest trek tomorrow morning but will try to post some pictures of Kathmandu before I leave.)

Deep-Vein Thrombosis

I have somehow managed to arrive safely in Nepal. I will write more when I get my bearings and remember what planet I am on. 48 hours of traveling with neither a shower nor much sleep can be smelly and discombombulating. I flew through Tokyo and Bangkok and discovered that Asians, not to be stereotypical, REALLY love their Ramen noodles. I partook and had the Cup O' Shrimp for breakfast yesterday in the airport. Looks like I will be departing the day after tomorrow for a 15-day trek to the base of Mount Everest. The Himalayas are gorgeous!

On the Road Again

The last week in DC was a whirlwind with graduation, family, resupplying, finalizing travel plans, etc. I apologize to all those who I didn't call. I am leaving in a few hours for Nepal. After that its on to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, New Zeland, and Fiji. If any of you want to meet me in any of these places, the offer is still open. Life is good.

The blog has gone big time

Endulging in a little self-googling, I discovered that my blog has reached the big leagues. I have been tired of competing for years with David Lee Roth for a little space on the web. I just typed in David Kinsman Roth in Google, and my blog is the fourth entry. Yeah baby.

Ciao South America

The past seven weeks in South America have been amazing. I climbed Machu Picchu, hiked up to 16,000 feet, met up with old friends and made dozens of new ones, swam in the Amazon, caught piranhas, toured vineyards, learned different languages, attempted (miserably) to dance samba and do capoeira, avoided getting robbed, stood under Rio´s magnificent Jesus statue, napped on some of the world´s most beautiful beaches, swam under waterfalls, and ate WAY too much cheese bread. So South America, gracias y obrigado. May the next four months of my life and travels be this delicious.

Dirty Little Secret

I have a dirty little confession to make (and it doesn´t involve a Brazilian prostitute). On this, my last night in Brazil, land of samba and steaks, I took a bus out to the mall and ate McDonald´s and watched Spiderman 3. I know, sounds awful, right? But I feel great, in that dirty sorta way. Looking forward to being back home in my country.

14 Years????

One other story from the weekend. I met a couple from New Zealand in Chapada Diamantina that had been traveling for a long, long time. Fourteen years to be precise. They started their trip in 1993! Fourteen years is a long time. During that time kids have been born, people have died, and David Hasselhoff has gone from un-cool to cool to un-cool again (now that I think about it, has David Hasselhoff ever been un-cool?). I can´t say that I am jealous of their 14 year roadtrip.

Diamonds are Forever

I just got back to the city (Salvador) after a three day trek in Chapada Diamantina (¨Diamond Cliffs ¨). I promised myself that I was finally going to draft a blog entry without using the words ¨incredible¨, ¨beautiful¨, ¨spectacular¨ or ¨awesome¨. However, its too hard to describe the hike and the park without using any of these words.

I was actually told by an Israeli on the hike that he finds Americans annoyting because they are so damn enthusiastic about everything. (Ironically his name was ¨Snir¨--pronounced SNEER. This stuff is too good to make up...) Anyway, the three-day hike was spectacular. The park was unique, because the relatively lush landscape was made up of layer upon layer of rock. We got to swim under waterfalls and deep swimming holes. We slept in caves one night and right next to a waterfall the next.

And perhaps best of all, we got to slide down a 75-foot natural rock waterslide (the guy on the left is me). [WOW! AS I WAS WRITING THIS BLOG ENTRY, SOMEBODY JUST GOT ROBBED! I am not talking about a statistic, as in ¨somebody gets robbed every 12 seconds in Brazil.¨ A French woman literally just got her backpack taken outside this internet cafe. She started yelling and chasing the kid but he got away. Holy $#!#%. Now she is sobbing uncontrollably in front of the cafe with police and a big crowd around her. Wow.] I am leaving Brazil tomorrow to go back to D.C. and will try not to get robbed in the next 24 hours.

A Belgian guy I hiked with gave me some of his pictures from our trek. If you want to see a few more of Chapada Diamantina National Park click on the picture below (Michel peering out over Fumaca Falls).

Chapada Diamantina National Park

Happy Mother´s Day

Happy Mother´s Day. Sorry I am not there to celebrate with you today, but we will celebrate later this week. Thank you for making ALL of this possible.

Happy Mother´s Day also to my grandmother, aunts and sister-in-law (who is due in a few more months).

Sabbatical

I know that all of you can´t wait to turn your computers on each morning, anticipating that I may have posted a new blog entry....But you guys are going to have to wait, as I am taking a break from the blog for the next few days. I am going on a 3-day hike in one of Brazil´s most beautiful national parks, Chapada Diamantina. (The park is an overnight bus ride west of Salvador.) The park has deep canyons, a 900-foot waterfall, caves that you can swim in, and sweeping vistas. I am excited.
On Tuesday, I take the bus back to Salvador, a flight to Rio, and then a flight from Rio back to Washington, DC. Hopefully, I can see and talk to some of you while I am back in the States for two weeks. Hope all is well with each of you.

Pretty Woman

So I had my first encounter with a Brazilian prostitute tonight. Don´t get excited. It was strictly PG. I was sitting at a cafe, writing in my jounral when a very attractive woman asked if she could talk to me. Next thing I know she is pulling up a chair and we are chatting away in Portuguese (ok, chatting away might be a stretch; I was more fumbling away in broken Portuguese/Spanish/English/Hebrew/Arabic.) I admit, sometimes I am naive, but I knew she wasn´t sitting down to engage me in a conversation about the Baroque movement in post-Renaissance Europe. Sure enough, six minutes into the conversation she asks me quite bluntly if I want to have sex with her. I said just as bluntly, ¨nao¨. After we got that out of the way, we had a rather pleasent conversation for two hours. Sadly, the Baroque movement never came up in our discussion....

Honkey

I´ve never felt so white in my life. I am not talking just white, white. I am talking about Casper the Ghost White. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves White. Wonderbread White. Let me explain. I liked Salvador so much I decided to stay here for an extra day. As I was walking through the old city last night I heard awesome music coming from upstairs of a house, so I thought I would go check it out. It turns out it was a capoeira ¨show¨, which was nothing more than 20 guys in a circle practicing capoeira with two other tourists looking on. As I wrote before, capoeira was a fighting form practiced by slaves in colonial Brazil. Its part martial arts and part break dancing. (I am embedding a YouTube video of capoeira so you can get a sense of what it looks like. Just click on the video to start playing it.)



So back to the show. Each of the guys in there were 1/2 Bruce Lee and 1/2 Michael Jackson (and not new Michael Jackson either, I am talking about Michael Jackson circa 1983). In short, they could kick your butt in pefect rhythym. They sparred with each other for almost two hours to the pulsing beat of drums and berimbaus (string instruments). It would have been incredible if it ended there. But....they thought it a funny idea to bring me down the one white guy in the room (cue The Price is Right´s Rod Roddy´s voice, ¨David Coooome on Downnnn¨) into the center. Ooooh, it was soooo painful. I normally don´t have much rhythm but put me in a circle with a bunch of Michael Jacksons and it looks like I have two left feet, both of which are clubbed. So the whole thing devolved into the white guy perfectly fulfilling the stereotype. It was the first time that I was glad that I didn´t have a camera...

Trouble Leaving Comments?

I have gotten emails from a number of you complaining about difficulties you are having leaving comments. If you want to leave a comment but can´t via this website, send me an email at: dkroth1@gmail.com, and I will post it myself.

There is no ¨e¨ in ¨fail¨.

All you will be happy to know that the subject of my very first blog entry, Gary Kaufman (the guy whose ¨E¨ fell off his keyboard), passed the NY bar exam as well. I looked it up online. Congrats Gary.

Sleep??

One isn´t supposed to be tired on vacation, right? But Brazil has left me exhausted. I have been here for two weeks and I have been to bed only twice before 2AM. Nights have been filled with samba, caparinhas, new friends, and pathetic attempts to speak Portuguese. I got to Salvador (a coastal city in northeastern Brazil) yesterday afternoon, checked into a nice hotel, and sat down on the bed at 5PM. I woke up this morning, 14 hours later, in all my clothes and my contacts still in.

Salvador promises to be an interesting city. More than half the city is black, descendants of slaves brought over by Portuguese colonizers. (Speaking of slaves...I was half amused and half horrified to see the Cheney/Queen Elizabeth picture in my inbox from a friend. No, they aren´t in Brazil; its a picture from the 400th anniversary of Jamestown last week. Does anybody else see the irony?)

The slaves were able to retain a large part of their culture, and Salvador´s vibe is much more interesting as a result. The city is home to some spicy dishes found nowhere else in Brazil; capoeira (a martial arts practiced by slaves and outlawed up until the 1920´s); and candomble (a religion practiced by slaves and still quite popular). Apparently this is the place to celebrate Carneval, as its parties are far crazier than those of Rio de Janeiro. I´ll be here for another day and then going treking for a week in the interior.

Thank you all for your congratulatory emails and comments about the bar. Each of them brought a smile.

Rodney King

I went to the championship soccer game in Rio de Janeiro today with an American exchange student living in Rio. Absolutely awesome. It was played in the biggest stadium in the world, Maracana, which has held up to 200,000. Steve and I sat on the Flamengo half of the stadium, which was wild because Flamengo won the championship in a penalty shootout. Fans shot off fireworks, lit flares, sang dozens of songs, danced, and waved enormous banners.

The only disturbing part of the game was the police. Brazil has pretty much marginalized the regular police, and now use the military police to deal with all things more serious than parking tickets. These military policemen are in the same class as Stacey Koon and the other LAPD officers that beat Rodney King. They administered some serious asswhooping with their billy clubs today. Any of these beatings, had they been in the U.S. and had they been caught on tape, would have made national headlines. For once, I tried to look as American as possible....

I am attaching a YouTube clip of fans from a different game played in Maracana. While its a little long, it should give you an idea of how rabid the fans are. Just click on the video to play it.



I leave Rio tomorrow morning for Salvador, a city in northern Brazil. Its hard not to fall in love with Rio, even after having only been here for two days. The city is gorgeous and brimming with energy.

The Copa...Copacabana

I finally tore myself away from Ilha Grande and am now in Rio de Janeiro. The city is spectacularly beautiful, probably the most beautiful big city I have ever seen. Its built between, and on the sides of, a series of mountains that come down to the Atlantic Ocean. I took a train up one of these mountains to the see the famous statute of Christ that overlooks the city. The sunset from atop the moutain was amazing, as the city and its landscape were bathed in rosy light.

Brazil is not what I expected it to be. Brazil has a reputation for having the most fun (think soccer games), the best music (think samba), the most beautiful women (think Gisele), and the best food (think steak). But the overwhelming feeling I get after talking to Brazilians is one of pessimissm and sadness. Most of the Brazilians I have met are upset with the country´s enormous income/wealth disparities, the glaring lack of security, low salaries, corruption, a brain drain, tax cheating, and a system that does not incentivize hard work. Young, talented, and motivated Brazilians are looking to leave Brazil. I am going to Rio´s championship soccer game tomorrow, so perhaps my perceptions will change as I see Brazilians in their true element. Everybody keeps telling me that I need to be careful because the games and fans are intense. (Apparently, its not uncommon for gunshots to be fired in the stadium.)


I am still reveling in my passing the bar. Life continues to be good, very good.

Congratulations Scott and Libby

Just wanted to congratulate my good friends Scott and Libby on their wedding tomorrow. I wish both of you the best of luck and a life full of happiness together. Sorry that I can´t be there to celebrate with you guys.

I PASSED!

From the NY Board of Law Examiners

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
NAME: DAVID KINSMAN ROTH

Date of Birth: 11/79

The State Board of Law Examiners congratulates you on passing the New York State bar examination held on February 27-28, 2007. An official notice has been mailed and will contain your Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) scaled score.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

I am so happy right now. I might even celebrate with some cheese bread.

Cheese Bread

All of you are familiar with the popular myth that the best way to stop a teenager from smoking is to make him sit down and smoke two packs--after that he will never want to smoke again. (My dad tried the same thing with me once, not with cigarettes, but with Ben and Jerry´s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. It failed miserably and its still my favorite ice cream.) I thought this cigarette myth was just that, but I can testify that the tactic might actually work. Let me explain:

Brazil has a food called pao de quiejo (literally `cheese bread´.) Its basically a chesse puff, but instead of being hollow, it has a chessy/doughy center. They are so #@$#@$!^~ addictive. I had been eating maybe 5-10 a day since I got to Brazil a week ago. They are about the size of a cupcake. Well on Tuesday, after hiking all day on Ilha Grande and not eating any lunch or breakfast, I got back to town famished and ordered 40 cheese breads. I admit it was a ridiculous number of cheese breads. But I sat down and ate the first 10 and was still hungry. I ate the second 10 and should have stopped there. I ate the third 10 and thought I was going to throw up. But there were still 10 cheese breads staring up at me. Having already overeaten, I should have been somewhat rational and given the rest away or saved them for the next day. But I am so stuuuuupid and ate the last 10 (something my brother would have done). What a mistake. I thought I was going to puke the rest of the day. I didn´t eat a SINGLE thing all day Wednesday and most of the day Thursday. I still feel nauseous. I think its going to be a long time before I get anywhere close to cheese bread again. My addiction has been cured. So go ahead, give your kids those two packs of smokes....

I leave Ilha Grande tomorrow for Rio de Janeiro. This past week has been absolutely perfect. I have spent my days snorkeling in turquoise water, napping on some of the country´s best beaches, and hiking through the island´s rain forests (and of course gorging myself on cheese breads). If you don´t see me post an entry within the next couple of days, its either because I got kidnapped in Rio or I was in the hospital getting my stomach pumped.

Ol´ Blue Eyes

I am (still) in heaven. I am still on Ilha Grande, two hours south of Rio de Janeiro. I was only going to spend two days here before going to Rio, but I´ve decided to stay seven. As you know, I buried my camera last week (complete with color guard and bugle), but you can click on the link below to see some pictures of Ilha Grande. I don´t know who Killth Wight is, but her pictures do some justice to the island. Enjoy.

http://flickr.com/photos/54462732@N00/tags/ilhagrande/

Bye Bye Maldives

I think its safe to say that I am Al Gore´s worst nightmare. Over the last 5 weeks, I have taken: 15 flights, 17 boat rides, 7 buses, dozens of taxis, 1 train, and 2 horses (it would have only been one horse, but the first one wasn´t used to carrying Americans). If you read in the coming months that rising ocean levels have destroyed the Maldives you´ll know who to blame.